


kick drum beating in my chest again.

by katarama



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, First Dates, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 12:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7802656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Kira sees Derek and Scott, she’s covered in coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kick drum beating in my chest again.

The first time Kira sees them, she’s covered in coffee.

It’s the kind of scene that movies would stretch out in slow-mo, and not in a good way.  The camera pans to Kira, sitting at her favorite table in the Student Union Starbucks, the table she dragged herself out of bed early on a Saturday morning to secure.  Enter Unnamed Student, a tall boy with hair that falls down into his eyes.  He balances a cup of iced coffee, two or three hardback textbooks, his phone, and some change.

The camera flashes for the briefest moment to the uneven tile right on the ground next to Kira’s table.  Unnamed Student has removed the lid of his coffee cup.  It’s obvious what’s going to happen.

But Kira, of course, is the picture perfect model of an unsuspecting victim.  She has her headphones jammed in her ears, and she’s reading through one of paperbacks for her freshman English course.  She is Not Paying Attention.  

Her shirt is white.  Her bra is lavender.  She was hoping to get away with it.

He trips, and the slow-mo kicks in.  The cup tips, the dark coffee splashing Kira’s shirt, the ice falling down and gathering in the folds of her skirt.  

“I’m so sorry,” Unnamed Student says.  His hands are still full.  “I’ll go grab some napkins, I’m so sorry.”

He sets his books down while he runs for napkins.  He shoves them at Kira, apologizing again, twice.  Kira tells him it’s fine and shoos him off; he has a study session he’s already late for, he informs her, and Kira doesn’t want to make him even later.

Kira’s books are mostly dry, just a few drops of stray coffee, but she looks down at her shirt in dismay.  She knows that all the napkins in the world aren’t going to fix the stain seeping into her shirt if she doesn’t take more drastic measures.  She also knows there is a bathroom just outside the Starbucks.  Going there involves leaving her stuff or giving up her prime seating, neither of which she really wants, so she glances around.  

The Starbucks isn’t super busy quite yet, and if she packed up her stuff, she might be back in time to reclaim her spot.  She doesn’t really want to, though.  Not of she can get someone to watch her stuff for like two seconds.

There’s only one other occupied table close to her, with two boys sitting across from each other, one with dark hair curling behind his ears and a dimpled smile, the other with stubble and more muscles than Kira thinks any person has the right to have  They’re holding hands above the table, and Kira weighs whether she should go over to them or not.  They look like they may be on a date, and she doesn’t want to interrupt them.  Plus, they are strangers, and she doesn’t know how well she can trust them to look after her stuff.

The brown-eyed boy with dimples does look pretty trustworthy, though, and Kira can feel the wet shirt starting to stick to her skin.  So Kira decides that desperate times call for desperate measures.

“I’m so sorry,” she says in a rush, standing next to their table, one eye on her stuff.  “I don’t mean to bother you, but I need to run to the bathroom.  Would you mind watching my stuff?  It’ll just be a few minutes, I promise.”

Kira feels both of their eyes on her, and she can feel herself squirming.  She’s sure they can probably see the purple through her soaked shirt; the one with the stubble only takes one glance at her before he’s looking Anywhere But Her Chest, his cheeks pink.  The floppy-haired boy is looking at her with concern in his eyes, though, his eyebrows furrowed gently.

“Are you okay?” he asks.  

“I’m fine,” Kira reassures him.  There’s something weirdly intense about the way he looks when he’s worried, and if Kira were in any other situation, she’s positive she’d be tripping over her words.  “Someone spilled on me, that’s all.  I just need to go try to rinse this out before the stain decides it’s never going to come out.  I’m not sure if there’s an air dryer in the bathroom or not, but I want to go check.”

“We’ll watch your stuff, don’t worry about it,” he tells her.  “You’re the table over there, right?”

“Yeah,” Kira says, nodding as he points towards her stuff.  “I’ll be back in just a few minutes, sorry again.”

She’s ready to go when the other boy, Mr. Blushy And Beardly, stops her.

“I have an extra shirt,” he tells her.  “It’ll be a bit big on you, but if there’s no air dryer.”

“You don’t have to!” Kira says quickly.  But the boy is already reaching down into his backpack and pulling out a neatly-folded white shirt.  He holds it out to her, his gaze finally firmly on Kira’s face, which Kira is pretty sure is flaming red when she reaches out to grab the shirt.

“Right,” she says.  “I’ll.  Uh.  Be right back.”

She ducks out as quickly as she can to find the bathroom.  It’s big, and in the student center, so Kira expects it to just have air dryers, so the school doesn’t have to pay for paper towels.  To her dismay, though, there are only paper towels.

She grabs a handful and wads them up, takes her shirt off, and gets to work wetting the shirt and trying to dab the coffee out.

Kira has surprising success, because she started before any of the coffee dried.  Still, with no way to dry the shirt, she finds herself putting on the white shirt from Beardly Guy.  She tucks it into her skirt and decides it’s good enough.  She’s swimming in it, though she’s sure it’s probably tight around his biceps, and the V of the shirt dips so her bra is almost visible, anyway.  It’s warm, though, and dry, which is more than she can say for her shirt.

She can’t help but notice how nice it smells, too, just a whiff of something subtle and woodsy.  She doesn’t know if it’s cologne or deodorant or what.

Either way, she takes more than one long sniff before she rebraids her pigtails, grabs her wet t-shirt, and heads back out.

* * *

 

Brown eyes and dimples and curly hair is Scott.  He has scooted all his stuff over to clear a place next to him at the table, and when Kira comes back out, the first thing out of his mouth is, “What’s your favorite drink?”

“Mint tea,” Kira answers before she realizes her mistake.  Scott isn’t asking as a hypothetical.  He pulls his chair out and stands up to go up to the counter and get one for her.  Kira tries to tell him that she doesn’t need one, she has a drink at her table, but the guy with the beard who smells very nice (Derek, Scott’s boyfriend of three years who is apparently very used to Scott smiling at strangers who have had a rough day and buying them tea) just shakes his head at her.

“There’s no point in trying to talk him out of it,” Derek says, his tone laced with fondness.  “You can bring your stuff over here if you want, though.  There’s space.”

Kira packs up her stuff and moves it over to the table with Derek and Scott.  She knows she won’t be so productive sitting with other people, and she’s having to leave her favorite table, but Derek and Scott are being so nice to her, and she thinks maybe she deserves a study break.  She’s just setting her stuff down when Scott hands her a cup, the green paper end of the tea bag dangling down from the string.

“The shirt looks good on you,” Scott says, and Kira flushes.  

“Thank you,” she says to Derek.  “Thank both of you, actually.”

“It’s no problem at all,” Scott says, beaming.  “Anything we could do to cheer you up, we wanted to.”

* * *

 

Kira spends almost the entire afternoon with them.

She’s relieved to find out that, although she did interrupt a date, they planned to stick around and study for a while, too.  The three of them talk about a half an hour before Scott beats Kira to the question, asking if she minds if they did some work for a little bit.  Kira gets through another few chapters in her book, though it isn’t quite the productive afternoon she planned.  They intersperse their studying with conversation, and when Kira learns Derek plans to be a history major and is enrolled in one of her dad’s classes, she gives him a long list of tips and tricks for her dad’s teaching style.

Kira’s phone goes off not long before dinner to remind her she has plans with Allison, and she starts to wind down.  She thanks Derek and Scott for letting her sit with them and for making her day brighter, and she starts to pack up her stuff when she comes across her still soaking wet white shirt.

“I still have your shirt,” Kira says, turning to Derek.  “I can go change and give it back to you now, or…”

“Here,” Derek says.  He reaches out for one of Kira’s myriad napkins and jots down his number.  “Keep it.  Scott and I are going out to the movies next weekend to see the new Ghostbusters movie.  You can give it back then, if you want.”

“I don’t want to interrupt another date,” Kira blurts.  “I mean, not that it wasn’t really, really nice spending the afternoon with you today, both of you are really kinda amazing, and I had fun.  But I don’t want you to feel obligated to-”

“Kira,” Scott says gently.  “We don’t feel obligated.  We’re inviting you out on our date.”

“Oh,” Kira says, glancing back and forth between the two of them.  Scott’s face is warm and encouraging.  Derek’s is much, much harder to read, though it doesn’t look hostile, or even really intimidating.  But Kira supposes that Scott’s right - if Derek had wanted her to swing by his apartment to give it back to him, or if he even wanted her to come in and give it to him before her dad’s class, that would’ve been a much easier option.

“You shouldn’t feel obligated either,” Derek says.  “You don’t even have to give my shirt back.  I have plenty.”

“I’d really like to go see the new Ghostbusters movie with you,” Kira says, smiling.  “And your shirt smells really nice, and I definitely wouldn’t mind keeping it, but I’ll wash it and give it back to you next weekend.”

“Text me,” Derek says, handing the napkin with his number over to Kira.  “I can give you Scott’s too, if you want.  We don’t have solid plans yet, but we can let you know.”

“I’ll definitely text you,” Kira promises.  She goes to tuck the napkin into her skirt pocket, but when she finds an ice cube in there, she slips it into her backpack, instead.  “It was really nice meeting the two of you.  Thanks again for everything.”

“And we’ll see you next weekend?” Scott says hopefully.

“Yeah,” she agrees.  “It’s a date.”

* * *

 

Kira texts with Derek and Scott.  They have a whole group chat just for them, and Kira is relieved to find out that it isn’t one of those group chats that moves so fast she’s scrambling to keep up.  Derek is all perfect grammar and succinct messages, but he’s much slower at it, whereas there’s no telling how many messages are going to come from Scott’s fingers.  

By Tuesday, they’ve made plans to grab dinner at the mall and see the 7:00 PM Saturday showing of Ghostbusters, and Kira spends the whole rest of the week vibrating with excitement.  Derek buys the tickets for them and reassures Kira that she doesn’t have to pay him back when she offers, because he asked her out.

Kira gathers together a load of whites and spends the quarters to wash Derek’s shirt.  It doesn’t smell like him anymore when it comes out of the dryer, to her dismay, but she figures it’s probably more important that it’s clean when she hands it back to him.  She picks a purse Saturday morning and makes sure she folds the shirt neatly and tucks it inside then so she doesn’t forget it.

Dinner is from a diner in the mall food court with delicious, giant burgers that Kira is pretty sure are impossible to eat in a way that isn’t messy.  She covers her lap in napkins and eats carefully over her plate, trying to avoid getting anything on her clothes.  She has to go wash her hands after she’s done eating, but she comes away clean, which she thinks is the biggest accomplishment imaginable.  

Scott holds her hand while Derek gets their tickets printed from the kiosk by the theater, and Kira feels like she’s glowing.  She trades Derek the tickets for his shirt, thanking him again for letting her borrow it, and they make their way past man collecting tickets.  They each get a red, cherry slushie, and they get a big thing of popcorn to share.  They head back to their theater and find three seats together just in time for the previews to start.

Kira smiles to herself as she feels Derek’s arm stretching and then settling behind her, resting warm around her back.  Scott laughs and jokes about how smooth Derek is, but Kira doesn’t mind.  She leans up and gives Derek a kiss on the cheek for his efforts, his stubble slightly rough against her lips.

They start in on the popcorn, and Kira takes the lid off her slushie, using the spoon at the end of the straw to scoop the ice so she isn’t just sucking the liquid out.  They watch through the previews and settle in, Kira curling up into Derek’s side as best she can, with the armrest between them.  They’re getting close to the start of the movie when a family of four stands at the end of their row.  Kira isn’t paying attention, watching the giant screen, and when Scott stands up, she doesn’t really notice.

“Hey,” the youngest kid says, and Kira jumps, tilting her drink as she stands.

Her shirt is painted cherry slushie red.

Scott laughs so loudly the people in front of them shush him, though he gives Kira a sideways, apologetic hug to reassure her that he isn’t laughing _at_  her.  Kira, more than anything, is embarrassed.  At least the shirt wasn’t white, this time.

“You can have my shirt back,” Derek offers.  Kira isn’t entirely sure it isn’t a plot from the universe to make sure she is always wearing Derek’s clothes, but she accepts, running to the bathroom to put it on before the movie starts.  She slides back into her seat right as the opening scene starts, and Scott grabs one hand while Derek holds the other.

They don’t make Kira feel embarrassed about it, and after the movie, Scott tells stories about his and Derek’s early date disasters.  Of Scott not realizing the first date was actually a date and not really understanding why Derek looked so nervous.  Of the first time Derek invited Scott over to his place to spend the night, when Derek’s little sister made a game of bursting into their room the whole night to try to catch them doing something they weren’t supposed to.  The stories are so ridiculous that even Derek is laughing and adding in his own color commentary, and it makes the walk go quickly.  Before long, they’re standing outside Kira’s door, all of Kira’s nerves about the night completely gone.

“I had fun,” Kira says, “even though I didn’t manage to give you your shirt back.”

“You look good in it,” Derek tells her, “and this just means we have to go on another date, now.”

She gives each of them a giant hug, and Scott gives her a kiss on the cheek to match the one she gave Derek at the movies.  She waves goodbye to both of them and unlocks her door, and she pretends she doesn’t see the two of them watching from down the street to make sure she gets in safely.

Kira puts stainstick on and sticks her shirt in the laundry basket before she settles down for the night.  She snaps a quick selfie and sends it to the group chat, saying how much fun she had.  She brushes her teeth and grins at the equally enthusiastic responses from Derek and Scott.  She washes her face and takes her braids out and changes out of her jeans into her sleeping shorts, but she hesitates before stripping out of her shirt.

She slips her bra off from under it, but she leaves it on.  It’s big and warm and reminds her of her dates.  She’s going to wash it, anyway, later.  There’s no harm in wearing it just a little longer..

* * *

 

“You kept the shirt,” Malia says when she comes over and sees it on Kira’s bed.  She sounds as skeptical as she is surprised.  “You’re really into this guy, aren’t you?”

“ _These guys_ ,” Kira corrects, her face heating up at Malia’s eyebrow waggling.  She doesn’t have to defend herself on it, not with Malia.  “But yeah.  I think I might be.”

She knows it’s new, and unconventional, and that she should take things slowly.  She knows she tends to fall into things feelings-first, and that this is no exception.

But somehow, with Derek and Scott, that doesn’t seem so scary.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](http://sleepy-skittles.tumblr.com).


End file.
